Strawberry Milkcake

Hi everybody!

As promised in my last post, here is the majestic Strawberry Milkcake in all her glory.. I thought I’d post this before I am drowning in the swamp that we call AS Levels. I’d say I’m only at the franticlytreadingthewaterstage at the moment

So you’re probably all asking, “hey, Sureyya, what is this Strawberry Milkcake you speak of?” And I will respond to you saying well “its a gorgeous fluffy cake made with one extra super-trouper(oh! Spot o’ ABBA..)-doopa special ingredient.. And that is Strawberry Nesquik!” WHAATT?!?! Yeah, I know, wild-times… But, you know that’s me, crazy, reckless, wild…

The actual sponge cake doesn’t have any sugar in it as the sugar is replaced by scrummy Nesquik! To answer your question, yes, this does mean that because it doesn’t have any proper sugar in it, you are allowed to scoff copious amounts of it all at once. I know I did!

The cake itself is actually very simple to make as it follows the normal creaming method that we all know and love, the only difference is that you use Nesquik instead of sugar.. Simples! Then you have to go through that torturous process of waiting for it to bake and then cool and blah blah blah.. To be honest, I’m always that baker who is too impatient to wait for their cake to cool, telling myself it will all be fine because I’m baking it so it’s going to be different because I’m a master pro at baking (in my 15 years of experience, yep baking from age 2, working for the prestigious bakery of the Munir Household) but no. I was wrong. Again. Because just like you see on the Bake Off disasters, the cake will fall apart because it’s so fragile and weak 😦 Yes, cakes have feelings too… So basically, to cut a long story short, the moral of the story is to wait for your cake to cool.

Don’t even get me started on the icing: the prettiest of pinks and the tastiest of icings. I think I must have eaten about a quarter of the icing before it had a chance to get onto the cake. But hey, at least it wasn’t the whole thing. Restraint. The taste of this frosting takes you right back to slurping a cold glass of Strawberry Nesquik when you were little. Or in my case, last week. I think Lisa Faulkner says the same thing in the description for the cake in her cookery book but she is so right. I find it amazing how food has the ability to bring back so many memories. Just from a finger-lick of this frosting, I travelled back in time to my brother and I gulping down milkshakes together in the summer sun. 🙂 Ah, so poetic..

As I mentioned before, this recipe comes from Lisa Faulkner’s new recipe book called “Tea and Cake with Lisa Faulkner.” This book is just perfect if you’re like me. These cakes don’t look like they’ve just come out of a patisserie window display, they look even better because they look yummy and homemade and adorable and I just love the styling. Those who know me well know I’m a sucker for cutesy, rustic things so you can understand why this book is right up my street.. It’s so me! I very, very much recommend that you get this book. The recipes aren’t too difficult and there is a huge variety, from more classic cakes such as the Battenberg, which I will be blogging about in the future, and more fun cakes such as this one right here!

So I think, I’ve done enough to persuade you to go buy the book and go bake the cake because, just look at it… It’s so preeetty and I can tell you it tastes delish too!

I have one rule for when you’re eating this cake though. This cake was not baked for slivers. What’s the point in slivers anyway, I mean we all know that you’re going to have another sliver, and another. What does sliver plus sliver plus sliver equal? Big chunky slice. So why not have the big, chunky slice in the first place? See Figure 1 for an example:

Figure 1